In May of 2013, while visiting the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany I unexpectedly found myself in a small gallery saturated with the leaden-grey ashes of war and suffering. I felt as if I had entered into Baudelaires poem “La Beatrice,”

“Through ashen fields, burnt to a cinder, where no green thing grew, one day I lamented…”

–I had chanced upon an exhibition of work by Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, and Sebastião Salgado, three artists deeply affected by World War II. I felt close to these men in the presence of their portrayal of the terrible weight of war and the raw emotions called up in the aftermath. We have a generational kinship, Kiefer and Salgado are my own age. After my father died in the invasion of France in 1944, and while growing up in Montana, I saw our own aftermaths and ruins in the ghostly smelters and abandoned mines of Butte and Anaconda. The smoothe concrete and marble monuments that were erected in my local cemetery and public parks seemed to me feeble responses to the terrible price paid for that war. Now, seventy years after Omaha Beach, I am again a witness, pursuing my work in the archives of mining and banking – appropriating images and building my own memorials.
LIBER IGNIS is the fifth volume of an ongoing series of literary explorations utilizing appropriated photographs as evidence and documenting man’s battle against nature in the American West. The earlier volumes include: Hard Words I and II; Nature Morte; and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea.

LIBER IGNIS consists of six .033” lead sheets printed at Magnolia Editions on a UV cured acrylic flatbed press interleaved with laminated felt and Evolon split microfiber sheets dyed black and printed from polymer plates on the Hacker Test Press at Peter Koch Printers. The binding is constructed with soldered copper tubing and linen thread. The text was composed in Fell Roman and Italic with Rockwell for titling. Box construction executed by John DeMerritt Bookbinding, lettering hand-painted by Christopher Stinehour.

Himself, Adrift, is a fictional account of the mysterious disappearance of the first governor of Montana Territory, Thomas Francis Meagher [born 1823]. Meagher (pronounced “Marr”) was last seen on the stern-wheel steamboat G. .A. Thompson moored in Fort Benton on the 1st of July 1867.

This disturbing work of short fiction from the pen of novelist Matt Pavelich is the inaugural publication of Last Chance Gulch Editions, a collaborative imprint of Peter Koch Printers & the Territorial Press in Helena, Montana. The images, printed letterpress from photopolymer plates are re-configured photographs from historical sources appropriated and altered by Peter Rutledge Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken. Printing & sewn-board construction binding accomplished by Peter Koch, Jonathan Gerken, Aaron Parrett, and Dina Pollack at Peter Koch Printers. The typefaces are an eclectic amalgam of antique metal & digital facsimiles including Fell Historical, Copperplate Gothic, Delraye, Greco Adornado, Onyx, Gold Rush, Thunderbird Extra Condensed, etc. all from the collection of Peter Koch Printers. The text paper is Zerkal Bütten-Druckpapier imported for this edition from Germany.

The design is reminiscent of the legendary 1866 edition of Montana’s first imprint The Vigilantes of Montana or Popular Justice in the Rocky Mountains by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Montana Post Press Book and Job Printing Office, Virginia City, Montana Territory.

Michelangelo is the most celebrated of all visual artists, and one of the few who are admired in equal measure for sculpture, painting, and architecture. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that he was also a great poet. In fact he was, without much doubt, the greatest lyric poet of his time in the Italian language.

In every field of art, fate supplied him with the best imaginable models. In sculpture, his forebears were Donatello and Ghiberti; in architecture, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Sangallo, and Bramante; in painting, Botticelli, Bellini, Mantegna, and Leonardo; and in poetry, Dante, Cavalcanti, and Petrarch. He knew the work of all these masters at first hand. Yet in each of these arts he also took new risks and followed paths that no one else had taken.

Poetry in Michelangelo’s time was a more private art than painting. Poems circulated mostly in manuscript, often among the members of private clubs devoted to literature and conversation. They were also used to curry favor. Michelangelo was not a clubbish sort of person, nor did he ever write a fawning dedication, seeking the patronage of the wealthy – but he did sometimes enclose handwritten poems with the letters and sketches he sent to a few close friends.

He treated his poems casually – very much like sketches rather than finished works of art – and they remained uncollected and unpublished for seventy years after his death. When they did appear in print, in 1623, they had been heavily censored and bowdlerized by their editor, Michelangelo’s grand-nephew.

Perhaps that too is no surprise. Though he was showered with praise in his lifetime, and has been honored ever since, Michelangelo’s work has always seemed too potent to some observers. Less than a year after his death, drapery was painted over the crotches of the figures in his powerful Last Judgement, in the Sistine Chapel – and much of that drapery was retained, even when the Sistine frescoes received a zealous cleaning beginning in 1984. The genitalia of his sculpture of the risen Christ, in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, have also been covered since the sixteenth century by a heavy bronze loincloth. No uncensored edition of his poems appeared until 1893, three centuries after his death.

About 300 of his poems survive. Many are sonnets, but most are in a more supple form known as the madrigal. Among the best are a group composed when Michelangelo was in his sixties. These are poems written for or about Vittoria Colonna, evidently the only woman whom the adult Michelangelo ever loved. They speak with great strength and tenderness of loneliness and love, of the power of art, and of the hard, high-country stone in which the artist loved to work. Ten of these late, great poems are published here, in the original Italian, with Robert Bringhurst’s exquisite new translations.

They are indeed like sketches – and anyone who has been lucky enough to see Michelangelo’s sketches in the flesh will know that nothing could be better.

***

The Italian texts of Michelangelo’s poems, Bringhurst’s English translations, and his accompanying essay are all set in fonts that are descended from the chancery italics designed in the 1520s by the brilliant but short-lived calligrapher and printer Ludovico degli Arrighi. Michelangelo and Arrighi were not far apart in age. Early in the sixteenth century, they both spent several years in Rome, both working for the Vatican, and may have known one another at that time. In 1517, Arrighi also executed a large and important calligraphic commission for Vittoria Colonna – the woman who became, two decades later, Michelangelo’s closest friend.

Typographic historians routinely mention Arrighi, but few have understood his real importance to the field. Bringhurst makes an excellent case for considering Arrighi to be the world’s first type designer in the modern sense of the word: the first skilled calligrapher who drew letters specifically for punchcutters to cut, just as Baskerville and Van Krimpen, Dwiggins and Zapf would do centuries later. Arrighi was also the first professional calligrapher to become a letterpress printer and publisher, and the only major type designer who devoted himself exclusively to italic.

Several important revivals of Arrighi’s type were produced in England and France between 1923 and 1930. Since that time, the story of these fonts has been told repeatedly, but in many different ways. Stanley Morison and Frederic Warde, who were personally involved, left highly contradictory accounts, and several later writers have muddled the story further. Bringhurst’s 27-page essay peels away layers of misinformation and confusion, setting the record straight at last.

An afterword by Peter Rutledge Koch describes the provenance of the rare typefaces used to print the poems as well as the legendary printing press used to print the books. The essay is illustrated with two tipped-in photo-reproductions of the punches, from photographs by Amelia Hugill-Fontanel.

On the Michelangelo a portrait by Joseph Goldyne:
A publication of poetic works of unquestioned stature and universal appeal certainly requires no accompanying image. Yet, an introductory pictorial ‘exclamation mark’ seemed appropriate for this special edition, given that the poet is also one of the giants of visual art. Michelangelo’s portrait by Joseph Goldyne, executed as a drypoint, intentionally takes its cues from the rare drawing of the artist by his friend and follower, Daniele da Volterra in the collection of the Teylers museum, Haarlem. The drypoint aims for both strength and delicacy, a contemporary graphic homage reflecting qualities that characterize its sixteenth-century subject’s most enduring creations.

Hard High-Country Poems was designed & printed on the Gietz Universal platen press by Peter Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken. The Italian was composed by Michael Bixler in Monotype Arrighi and printed directly from the metal type. Bringhurst’s translation was handset by Mark Livingston from original foundry Vicenza & Arrighi types cut in 1925-26 by Charles Plumet for Frederic Warde. The preface and colophon pages were composed in a custom digital version of Monotype foundry Arrighi and printed from photo-polymer plates. The poems are printed on vintage Amalfi Amatruda handmade paper. The frontispiece, a drypoint portrait of Michelangelo by Joseph Goldyne, was printed by Robert Townsend.
9.5 x 5.75 inches, 32 pages

On the binding: the cover wrappers are derived from photographs of standing type-metal forms used to print the poems. The slipcase is covered in a reproduction of the rare Ludovico degli Arrighi. Type specimen sheet, [Vicenza : Tolomeo Janiculo, 1529] courtesy of the Book Arts Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Slipcase & binding in quarter leather and printed paper over boards by John DeMerritt Bookbinder.
Slipcase and chemise: 6 x 10 x 1 inches

The Complete Montana Gothic collects in a single volume all six issues of Montana Gothic: An Independent Journal of Poetry, Literature, and Graphics published from 1974 to 1977 by Peter Rutledge Koch at his Black Stone Press in Missoula, Montana. Original copies of the journal were scanned and are here reproduced in facsimile. Additionally, this edition includes seven illustrations, thirteen photographs, a complete contributors list, and seven new, previously unpublished articles and essays written expressly for this occasion by Adam Cornford, Edwin Dobb, Peter Koch, Milo Miles, Rick Newby, Aaron Parrett, and David E Thomas.

Forty years ago, Koch and his “wild bunch” of cowboy surrealists rode up into the mountains to stir up a bit of excitement and trouble in the dense forests and alpine peaks of the Big Sky Country. Gang members included Montana originals, “expats” in Kathmandu and Tangier, and seekers of the marvelous from San Francisco to New York, Paris, London, Mexico City, and beyond. The world may have changed but these wildly poetic works have retained their freshness in spite of, or perhaps because of, the great grinding-down process of too much information in an age of mechanical reproduction.

“It can be argued that there are two distinct categories of the REAL; that which is common and habitual, which I shall call REALITY, versus that which is suppressed by the first category, which I shall call MARVELOUS. If one can believe the great thinkers of this century— the supressed will return to haunt the bright plaza of low contrasts called ‘reality’ like lava extruded from a fault in the earth’s crust. If Nature abhors a vacuum then the imagination abhors reality (an opposition whereby what can be achieves a clawhold on what is.)”

“Beyond the imagination of the academic poets we can envision ourselves, like the Grizzly Bear in Yellowstone Park, sitting upon a veritable magma of faultily supressed potential that once allowed to escape could radically re-organize consciousness and its material attributes. There are and have been in Montana unprecedented extrusions of the marvelous that deserve our attention....”
–Peter Koch from DEADSTART, Montana Gothic 6

“Montana Gothic poets may seem like strapping cowboys chugging absinthe and shooting out streetlights, but they are damned fine shots.”
—William S. Burroughs

With the six issues of Montana Gothic, Peter Koch, like forbears such as Leslie Fiedler, James Welch, and Mary MacLane, opened the field, made room for those of us who take the notion of Montana literature seriously, but who want it always to be something more, something richer and deeply unexpected, a tradition built from hatred and love, rich in ambivalences, innovations, and unprecedented “extrusions of the marvelous.”
—Rick Newby

Christopher Carroll.
Berkeley: del Milion editions, 2013

Paris is a delightful alphabet book written and illustrated by fashion designer Christopher Carroll, illustrating his fifty-year love affair with the city of Paris. Carroll has set a sharp eye and wicked sense of humor to work on some of his favorite iconic locations and the charismatic characters that inhabited them. You will encounter Ho Chi Minh in the kitchen of Auguste Escoffier; Oscar Wilde in battle with the wallpaper at the Hotel D’Alsace; and the Surrealist photographer Dora Mar playing a bloody game of “truth or dare” with a kitchen knife.

Paris was designed by Peter Rutledge Koch in collaboration with Christopher Carroll and Susan Filter. Text and images were printed letterpress at Peter Koch Printers for del Milion editions. The typefaces are Nicholas Cochin for the text and Fournier Ornate for display. (How could we resist?) The original drawings in cut-paper and ink, were scanned at 42 Line and digitally re-configured under the direction of the printer. The text and images were printed on Hahnemühle Biblio, presswork from photopolymer-plates by Max Koch. The elegant chartreuse silk-over-flexible-board binding was executed by John DeMerritt Bookbinders.

edited by Peter Rutledge Koch.
: Stanford University Libraries, 2011

The works that comprise the exhibition are from Ninja Press, Moving Parts Press, Turkey Press, Foolscap Press, and Editions Koch. In addition to the exhibition checklist and an extensive color plate section, the catalogue contains three contributions by Robert Bringhurst: an erudite essay entitled “What the Ink Sings to the Paper,” a “Chronology of Fine Printing in California” that limns his essay, and a remarkably useful bibliography for further reading.

Twenty unpublished letters by Paul Bowles with eight accompanying water­colors and an original oil & acrylic painting on canvas by Ira Yeager
.

The young, dashingly handsome artist Ira Yeager arrived on the scene in Tangier, Morocco in the early 1960s. In those days Tangier was an exotic mélange of Berbers, French, Arabs, Spanish, libertine American heiresses, Gurdjieffians, artists, drunks, kif smokers, Russian spies, famous writers, Beat poets, and all sorts of riff raff. Yeager called the expatriate community the “Danger Queens” … (another story and possible book).

Tangier was cheap. You could buy a house for $400 or part of the King’s palace for $1000. Ira and his traveling companion Stuart Church frequented a hedonistic crowd of the demimonde—some truly eccentric characters—and caroused with them in the haunts of the rakish Zoco Chico.

Ira soon became friends with Paul Bowles, and much more so with the eccentric and witty Jane, who lived in apartments one above the other in the Immeuble Itesa. During the next two decades, 1962–1986, Ira exchanged some eighty or so letters with Bowles. Bowles’ letters are peppered with bits of gossip about their friends in Tangier and the writers who briefly lived and passed through there: William Burroughs, Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote. He writes to Ira about Tennessee Williams’ arrival and telephone call, ‘I’m in the Minzah, baby!’, and the beatniks, whose particular clothing and unruly attitudes were coming to the attention of the authorities, of delightful anecdotes of his life and travels in Morocco with a beautiful description of a visit to an oasis, of his up and coming book publications, of Jane and Cherifa, of Amed Yacoubi, the Englishman David Herbert, and of the blind Berber beggar woman with whom Ira became so fascinated.

This selection, edited and introduced by Susan Filter, consists of twenty out of eighty unpublished letters written by Bowles to Yeager and spans over two decades. Yeager’s brilliantly colorful illustrations for 2137 Tanger Socco were inspired by his memories and travels in North Africa. His sketchbooks from that period contains drawings and watercolors that he later used as material for his paintings: The Blind Berber Series and Veiled Fatimas.

2137 Tanger Socco was designed and printed in an edition variée of thirty numbered copies by Peter Rutledge Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken and Erin Fong for Susan Filter and Del Milion Editions. Each copy contains eight relief prints—hand water-colored by the artist. An original oil and acrylic painting on canvas has been set into the cover of each box. The paper is 300 gsm Hahnemühle Copperplate and the typeface is Bitstream Courier Bold. John DeMerritt Bookbinder constructed the elegant red cloth boxes lined with aquamarine Ultrasuede. Each copy is boldly signed by the artist, the printer, and the publisher.

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea began as a project during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In the Spring of 2005, the Missoula Museum of Art had two exhibitions running simultaneously that were critical responses to the celebratory afflatus that customarily surrounds such events. I was at the museum to open my exhibition Nature Morte when I saw, hanging in the next gallery, a fragment of a poem that accompanied Native Perspectives on the Trail: A Contemporary American Indian Portfolio. I was introduced to the author, Debra Magpie Earling, and based on that fragment, I proposed a collaboration. Over the next few years we met occasionally and worked sporadically on the concept while we each pursued our own busy and demanding schedules. By 2006 Debra had completed the writing, and in 2009 I collected the last photographs that I wished to accompany the text. Printing began in late 2009 and was completed in January 2010.

Debra is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. She has been published in journals and anthologies and her novel Perma Red received the American Book Award, the Mountains and Plains Bookseller Association Award, and a Spur Award. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.

The typeface is a version of the historic Fell types presumed to be the work of Dutch punchcutter Dirck Voskens and interpreted by Jonathan Hoefler in a conscious attempt to reproduce the imperfect image that the Fell types left on paper when printed in the 18th Century. The Fell types have been described as “retaining a retrogressive old-style irregularity” which somehow seems appropriate given our purpose here in this book.

The text is printed on Twinrocker Da Vinci hand-made paper at Peter Koch Printers and bound at the press by Jonathan Gerken. The smoked buffalo rawhide cover paper was designed and hand-made by Amanda Degener especially for this edition at Cave Papers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.The spine is beaded with trade beads and small caliber cartridge cases.

The images were prepared by Donald Farnsworth at Magnolia Editions and printed on Kozo hand-made paper with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken and Tallulah Terryll.

"The editing of [Hans Peter] Koch’s papers provides researchers unprecedented insight into Montana’s early territorial years from an articulate observer of the frontier and one of the molders of Montana society." —Brian Shovers, Montana Historical Society

Jointly published by Drumlummon Institute and Bedrock Editions, Splendid on a Large Scale: The Writings of Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch, Montana Territory, 1869-1874, presents the diaries and letters of a highly educated Danish immigrant who made significant contributions to the emerging EuroAmerican culture on the Montana frontier.

Known as Peter, the young man quickly grew “enthusiastic on the subject of Montana, her beauties and resources,” and his writings offer a wonderfully articulate account of his first years in a new country—as an unlikely frontiersman, often reluctant businessman, aspiring naturalist, avid bookman, and yearning lover (he wrote the bulk of his letters to his fiancée, Laurentze, whom he would wed in 1874).

Whether he was painting a picture of the home he hoped to build for his bride-to-be, lamenting the absence of good books, chronicling his efforts to trade with the Crow Indians, or describing the lynching of a murderer by vigilantes, Koch brought a sensitivity and astuteness to the task that belies his concern that the frontier might render him “rough and unpolished.”

Peter’s passion for education and book culture led him to start the Bozeman public library, but it was as co-founder of the Agricultural College of the State of Montana (today Montana State University, Bozeman) that he left his most lasting mark.

In his public spiritedness and as the “compelling, moving, driving force behind the movement for a newer education,” Peter possessed, in the words of the 1919 Bozeman Weekly Exponent, “the intelligence of an aristocrat and the heart of a democrat.”

Koch is often mentioned alongside other major collectors of the literature of western exploration. When Ripley Hitchcock discusses, in his landmark study, The Louisiana Purchase and the exploration, early history and building of the West, "the early memoirs of travelers and hunters, the tales of Indians . . . and the various personal narratives," he cites the "library of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, the Mercantile Library of St. Louis . . . and certain private libraries like those of Edward E. Ayer of Chicago [whose collections formed the backbone of the Newberry Library and the Field Museum], H. H. Bancroft of San Francisco [Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley], and the Hon. Peter Koch of Bozeman, Montana, [as especially] rich in examples of this early literature."

Edited and annotated by historian Kim Allen Scott, Splendid on a Large Scale includes not only Peter’s diaries and letters, but also an extensive introduction and afterword, Peter’s vivid account of his experiences as a trader at Fort Musselshell in 1869-1870, an essay on his extraordinary collection of the literature of western exploration, and an inventory of the most significant titles in that library.

The book is designed by Peter Rutledge Koch, great-grandson of Hans Peter Koch, one of America’s foremost letterpress printers and book artists, and founder of the Codex Foundation.

Nocturnes was printed in an edition of sixty-five copies at Peter Koch Printers by Monique Comacchio with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken. The poems were hand-set by Deborah Hsu and Jonathan Fetter-Vorm in sixteen point Garamond, cast long ago by the American Type Founders. The paper is vintage Amalfi by Cartiera Fernando Amatruda. The wood engraving is by Dirk Lee.

I’ll Die Tomorrow was designed, printed, and bound in an edition of forty-five copies by Peter Rutledge Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken at Peter Koch Printers for del Milion Editions. The text, set in Bookman Old Style, is printed letterpress on Hahnemühle Photo Rag and the cover is printed on Crane’s Cover. The original photographs are printed with a unique color technique created by Karen Filter and based on Carbro prints from the 1930s & 40s and Technicolor from the 1950s. They were selected from her “B-Movie Series” and “Detective Series” shot in the 1980s. The photographs were then scanned and corrected under the direction of the artist and reproduced as digital pigment prints at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California.

Rick Newby.
Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2008

Sketches Begun in My Studio on a Sunday Afternoon and Completed the Following Day Near the Noon Hour on the Lower Slopes of the Rocky Mountains was designed and printed by Peter Rutledge Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken. One hundred signed and numbered copies were printed on Hahnemulhe Biblio and twenty-six specially bound copies, signed and lettered A to Z were printed on vintage Robert Serpa handmade paper. The typeface is a hand-tooled digital version of Dante, designed in Verona by Giovanni Mardersteig and cut in steel by Charles Malin.

Peter Koch.
Berkeley, CA: Peter Koch, Printer, 2007

A collection from the printing presses of Peter Rutledge Koch with an introductory essay by Timothy D. Murray.

Black Stone Press 1975  1982
Peter Koch Printer, 1982  2006

This collection includes over 100 pieces of literary, artistic, bibliophile, and business printing weighing 12 pounds (including the box), produced under a number of different imprints including Black Stone Press, Hormone Derange Editions, Editions Koch, and Peter Koch, Printers. The contents range from a flier advertising the maverick literary journal MONTANA GOTHIC (Koch’s first piece of design, circa 1974 ... using lettraset and an AB Dick copy machine!), letterpress printed bookplates and wine labels, to a laser-printed pamphlet, all designed and printed between 1974 and 2007 by master printer, Peter Rutledge Koch at his studios in Missoula, San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.

The box, reminiscent of a 19th century letterbox, measuring 11.5 by 15 x 5.5 inches wide, was constructed (with splendid craftsmanship) by Taurus Bookbindery in San Francisco of acid free materials and vintage Buckram.

The accompanying essays and the list of contents are included as the 2007 contribution. In addition to the stated contents each box will have several items that are not included on the list due to the fact that we had less than 27 exemplars of certain materials we deemed appropriate to include in this collection.

The edition of 27 boxes are press-numbered on the spine and are available for sale from the printer.

Five hundred years ago Venice was host to the greatest Renaissance scholar-printers, humanists, and artists. Here in 1499, Aldus Manutius printed his most beautiful and enigmatic book, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Today we are participating in that great tradition.

Watermark is a series of lyrical meditations woven from the fabric of Venice in the late 20th century ... meditations on time & beauty ... a looking glass romance of a Russian poet-in-exile with a city that beguiles his eye. Brodsky dedicated Watermark to his friend the American painter, Robert Morgan who has lived in Venice for more than 30 years and the book is illustrated with 14 photo-gravures made from his original photographs.

The paper is Twinrocker “Da Vinci” handmade, with our own watermark designed by Christopher Stinehour and Susan Filter. Robert Morgan’s photographs were digitally re-configured by Donald Farnsworth and printed at his Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California from photogravure plates made by Unai San Martin. The printed sheets were shipped to Venice, Italy, where we printed the text in Monotype Dante types cast in lead at the Olivieri Typefoundry in Milano. Once the printing at the Scuola Grafica was completed, the sheets were shipped to our studio in Berkeley where the book will be bound in richly pigmented papers made by hand at Cave Papers in Minneapolis, MN.

The edition is limited to fifty copies Copies numbered 1 to 30 are bound Venetian-red hand made papers and housed in a hand painted wooden enclosure. Copies numbered I to V designate the deluxe edition bound in full vellum, housed in a unique box with a brass plate imbedded on the surface, includes a suite of all 14 photo-gravures signed by the artist. Fifteen copies are designated h/c (hors commerce).

A Ore Perse is a gathering of four poems composed in the Venetian dialect by Franco Ferrari Delfino that express an often humorous view of the world through the eyes of a native Venetian. The linoleum cuts are of familiar Venetian landmarks one of which is a large 12 x 30 inch fold-out view of the Rialto bridge.

The text was edited by Susan K. Filter and translated by Dina and Adalberto Viggiano. The press mark for this first publication under the del Milion imprint was designed in a collaboration between Susan Filter and Christopher Stinehour. It depicts a particular set of Byzantine-Gothic windows in the Corte del Milion in Venice where Marco Polo lived in the 13th century. Del Milion was the sobriquet given to him by the Venetians after the publication of his travel adventures in French, Livre des Merveilles (known as Il Milione in Italian). The Venetians call it the Courtyard of the Million ... lies!

Sixty-five copies were designed, printed on Arches cover, and bound in terracotta Fabriano wrapppers during the summer of 2006 by Peter Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken. Tony Green cut five linoleum blocks in New Orleans and then proofed them at the press. The typefaces are Scala for the text and Rialto Italic for display.

Robert Bringhurst.
Berkeley, CA: Editions Koch, 2005

A sequence of 12 poems and translations based on Presocratic sources. Designed and printed letterpress from photo-polymer plates by Peter Koch. The English text is set in Giovanni Mardersteig’s Dante type, designed in Verona and cut by Charles Malin in Paris in 1954. The Greek source texts, printed on facing pages, are set in Christopher Stinehour’s Diogenes Greek, designed in Berkeley in 1996. 200 numbered copies have been printed on Hahnemühle Biblio paper, Smythe-sewn, and enclosed in letter­press printed wrappers with cover designs by Winifred McNeill. Signed by the author. 26 lettered copies have been printed on Serpa handmade paper, with a typographic cover designed by Bringhurst and printed on Magnolia handmade paper. Hand-bound at the press by Jonathan Gerken. Signed by the author and slipcased.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2005

A portfolio of digital pigment prints assembled from historic photographs and documents; the manuscript journals and papers of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Elers Koch; and short legends by the artist hand-set in lead type. The prints are accompanied by texts selected from the writings of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Ross Cox, William T. Horniday, L.A. Huffman, Elers Koch and others. A preface by Rick Newby, an introduction by Griff Williams, and a statement (writings) by the artist complete the portfolio.

Nature Morte was originally commissioned in exhibition print format by the Holter Museum in Helena, Montana on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition 1804-1805.

The images are printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag by Urban Digital Color in San Francisco and the title engraving and texts are printed letterpress on Hahnemühle Copperplate by Peter Koch. The portfolio boxes are linen paneled with a stamped quarter leather spine and made by John DeMerritt in Emeryville, California.

The portfolio consists of eleven images printed on 16 by 22 inch sheets in a landscape format and slipped into folios on which are printed the accompanying texts. The title page, documentation, and essays are printed on loose folios and housed with the images in a sturdy clamshell box. A suite of exhibition prints of the entire text may be special ordered in sheets to facilitate wall hanging. The title page collage/engraving was hand-colored at the press by Susan Filter. Each portfolio is signed and numbered by the artist and each image is signed on the reverse.

The text is comprised of all twenty Greek fragments, varying in length from a only few words to 66 hexameters, of a poem composed by Parmenides almost 2,500 years ago in southern Italy. For this project, Peter Koch commissioned Dan Carr to create a new typeface that balanced the lyricism and movement of the handwritten poem and the formality of a carefully-made inscription. Parmenides Greek, the foundry face designed, cut, and cast by Carr at the Golgonooza Letter Foundry, is accompanied by Diogenes Greek, a digital face designed by Christopher Stinehour. Printed in Greek on the left with the translation by Bringhurst on the facing page. Greek text handset in Parmenides Greek at the press by Richard Seibert, Robert Bringhurst, and Peter Koch; English text set in Monotype Dante at the Golgonooza Letter Foundry; cover text, printed in red and black, set in Diogenes Greek. 5 wood engravings that boldly accent the text are hand-printed by Wagener in vibrant red, fiery orange and velvety black on Zerkall mill paper. 120 numbered copies, bound by Peggy Gotthold at Foolscap Press in quarter leather and Hahnemühle Bugra paper, are enclosed in a case covered in gold Japanese silk. 26 lettered copies, bound in full leather by Daniel Kelm and enclosed in a drop-back box, are accompanied by a suite of 10 wood engravings signed by Richard Wagener and a broadside specimen sheet for each of the typefaces made for this edition. Afterword by Bringhurst set in special digital Dante, New Hellenic Greek, and Lazurski Cyrillic, and printed from polymer plates. Signed by Koch, Wagener, and Bringhurst.

A revised second edition of The Diary of Christian Koch, privately published by the Koch family, including the original introduction by Thomasine Lutken in 1947. The diary covers a number of seafaring and river running adventures from the East coast of the United States and Central America, to the Mississippi and upper-Missouri Rivers during the early 19th Century. The new edition contains a second introduction by the editor, footnotes, and appendices. Designed by Peter Koch. Bound using orange quarter cloth and green paper over boards. Gold imprint of leaf on cover.

A reprinting of Keats’ poem in portfolio format accompanied by 11 drypoints hand-watercolored by the artist and one relief print. Text composed in a digital restoration of the historic Fell types and printed letterpress from photo-polymer plates by Peter Koch. Drypoints printed by Kay Bradner. Enclosed in a dark blue cloth clamshell box with stamped quarter leather spine constructed by John DeMerritt. Afterword by Matt Phillips.

“This book is ... a guided tour of ... the philosophy of artisanship, in some of its many forms.” A series of essays by master letterpress printer Peter Koch; poet, translator and typographer Robert Bringhurst; punchcutter, type designer, typefounder and poet Dan Carr; master stonecutter and type designer Christopher Stinehour; master bookbinder Daniel Kelm; bookbinder, casemaker and printer Peggy Gotthold; and visual artist and master wood engraver Richard Wagener. These essays, which detail their collaborative efforts in creating The Fragments of Parmenides, include “Philosophy and Printing in the Real West” by Koch; “Finding the Form of an Ancient Text” by Bringhurst; and “Parmenides, Craft and Being” by Carr. This companion text also features a number of photographs that trace the journey of creation, from conception to realization.

The Helen Fragments is a collaboration between two contemporary artists who have come together over an ancient text that has fascinated readers for millennia. The poet and printer, Richard Seibert, has selected portions from Homer’s Iliad that tell the tumultuous story of Helen of Troy and has translated them from the original Greek into contemporary lyric.

Winifred McNeill, a New York based artist, working over a period of two years, completed over a hundred drawings for this project. Each of the fifty fragments is accompanied by a drawing that has been reconfigured digitally under the supervision of the artist and printed letterpress from polymer plates.

The text is composed in Monotype Quadraat and the epigraph is in Wilson Greek. Printed from photo-polymer plates on Zerkall Bütten-Karten paper by Max Koch at the Koch Studio. Cover paper made specifically for this edition by David Kimball. Non-adhesive, external, long-stitch binding with leather tabs designed by Victoria Heifner and bound by John DeMerritt. Edition enclosed in a paper-covered slipcase with spine tab plus chemise.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2002

A set of seven typographic prints composed of found engravings and antique wood type. Designed and printed by Peter Koch. The prints pair images of war with the traditional seven liberal arts of the Renaissance. Includes a title page. Housed loose in a dark blue cloth box with quarter leather constructed by John DeMerritt. Each print signed by the artist.

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Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2002

A humorous typographic specimen book designed to imitate the style of a fictional 19th century printing business on the Montana frontier. Printed by Hannah Berman, Karen Eng, Max Koch, Marina Luz, and Chadwick Bidwell, under the direction of Peter Koch. Hand-bound by Victoria Heifner using quarter cloth over Davey board with hand woven headbands and an extra spine lable tipped in. Cover board features a rodeo engraving printed in terra cotta, and text printed in green and marigold.

A collaboration between poet Mary Julia Klimenko, artist Manuel Neri, and photographer M. Lee Fatherree. The portfolio is comprised of ten poems written in English by Klimenko and translated into French by Armelle Vanazzi Futterman; a unique painting on printed paper by Neri; and 13 silver-gelatin prints from photographs of Mary Julia taken by Fatherree, 11 of which are hand-painted by Neri. Introduced in French by writer and journalist Paul Van Melle and English by Futterman. The text was designed and printed on Rives BFK paper by Peter Koch, using Centaur and Arrighi types cast by M & H Type. The binding structure was designed by Daniel Kelm and executed by Kelm, Kylin Lee, and other mechanics at the Wide Awake Garage. Numbered and proof editions are bound in goatskin leather, with leather onlay, hand-tooling, and stamping in palladium leaf. The book, plus one hand-painted photograph, is housed in a clamshell box covered in Japanese book cloth constructed by Linda Lembke at Green River Bindery. The deluxe edition, like the other editions, is bound in goatskin leather, with leather onlay, hand-tooling, and stamping in palladium leaf. Included with the book is a suite of three silver-gelatin prints, one of which is uniquely hand-painted by Neri. The book and suite are housed in a leather-covered drop-wall box that echoes the palladium design of the book cover. Limited to 25 numbered copies, 10 deluxe copies, 2 printer’s proof copies, and 3 artist’s proof copies.

Various authors.
Berkeley, California: Hormone Derange Editions, 2001

Over a period of ten years beginning in 1991 I designed and printed from hand-set type, found-engravings and original artwork, a series of literary broadsides on various papers under the imprint of “Hormone Derange Editions, Last Chance Gulch,” an imprint invented for this series and for the joy of cowboy humour. The authors and artists include maverick poets, barflies, and cowboy surrealists among several well-known names in American literature. This collection was made purely for the fun of it all and friendship with the printer was the driving editorial criterion. The broadsides were printed in editions of 100 and 26 signed copies were reserved for this lettered edition.

The portfolio includes 16 signed broadsides by writers Victor Charlo, Barry Gifford, Greg Keeler, William Kitteredge, Peter Koch, Ed Lahey, Milo Miles, Rick Newby, Paul Piper, Thomas Sanchez, David Thomas, Philip Whalen, John Yao, and an additional broadside featuring a poem by Robert Bringhurst. Original wood engravings by Dirk Lee. The broadsides and a lettered title page are laid in an oblong clamshell box covered in German linen with a spine label printed on Fabriano Ingres. Broadsides may also be purchased individually.

A poem celebrating Venice and the complaints of its inhabitants written in Venetian dialect with an English translation on facing pages. Franco Ferrari, a life-long inhabitant of Venice, pokes gentile fun at his fellow citizens of the Serenissima. Tall, narrow, pamphlet printed letterpress on Rives paper by Susan Filter under the direction of Peter Koch. Two text illustrations of the Venetian neighborhood osteria, Già Schiavi, printed in blue. The pamphlet is enclosed in an Aragosto red Fabriano Ingres printed wrapper.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2000

These one word picture poems were first begun in 1991 in an attempt to reformulate the custom of issuing wanted posters. I was searching for a new language form to express what was wanting (wanted) in my own vocabulary of symbols. The lead and wood types, copper electroplated and zinc photo-engravings were collected from such various sources as a newspaper office near Freezout, Montana and a printer’s junkyard in San Francisco.

A portfolio of eight Iris prints generated from the original photo-engravings and handset types of Portfolio One and digitally re-configured to produge these striking and densely pigment saturated prints in a limited edition of 20 copies. The prints, measuring 15 x 19 inches are printed on 500 gr. Somerset Radiant White. The box, fabricated by John De Merritt, is covered with German Iris Cloth and hinged in foil stamped terra cotta leather. Signed.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Editions Koch, 2000

These one word picture poems were first begun in 1991 in an attempt to reformulate the custom of issuing wanted posters. I was searching for a new language form to express what was wanting (wanted) in my own vocabulary of symbols. The lead and wood types, copper electroplated and zinc photo-engravings were collected from such various sources as a newspaper office near Freezout, Montana and a printer’s junkyard in San Francisco.

A portfolio of nine letterpress prints in a limited edition of 20 copies, was generated from photoengravings, lead and wood types. The prints, measuring 10 x 13.5 inches are printed on Fabriano Rosapina. The box, fabricated by John De Merritt, is covered with German Iris Cloth and hinged in foil stamped terra cotta leather.

Richard Wagener.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1998

This abcdarium and bestiary was commissiond by Peter Koch from the artist Richard Wagener in 1991. It came to completion seven years later in what has been hailed a tour de force of wood engraving by a modern master. Designed and printed on Zerkall paper by Peter Koch and Richard Wagener. The text, twenty-six short fictions written by Wagener that evoke the American West, is composed in Monotype Ehrhardt cast by the Golgonooza Letter Foundry. Accompanying the text are twenty-six wood engravings in black that follow the artist’s zoological alphabet, from the armadillo, Tolypeutes tricinctus, to the meadow jumping mouse, Zapus hudsonius. In addition to the zoological alphabet blocks, there are twelve engravings in red that serve as backgrounds for the initial letters used to indicate a new section. Bound by Peggy Gotthold using quarter leather and printed gray Fabriano Roma paper over boards, with gold lettering on the spine. Housed in a red cloth slipcase plus gray chemise. Signed and numbered by the artist.

A selection of sixteen poems by Robert Creeley. Text composed in Monotype Gill Sans by the Golgonooza Letter Foundry, Ashuelot, New Hampshire, and printed on Zerkall paper by Peter Koch. Nine linoleum cuts by the Los Angeles painter, John Millei, were proofed, printed, and then canceled at the press. The books are bound in quarter cloth with Fabriano paper sides, labeled and housed in a slipcase. The edition, limited to seventy-ﬁve numbered and twenty-ﬁve lettered copies, is signed by the author, artist, and printer.

Designed by Peter Koch in collaboration with Joseph Goldyne and printed letterpress on handmade Moravia paper from the Velke Losny Mill. The text, a short story by Saroyan that first appeared in The Yale Review, was composed at the press in Poliphilus and Blado, with Delphian, Libra, and Trajan for display. Paired with the text are ten etchings by Golydne, which were proofed and editioned by Kay Bradner. The cover is printed on custom handmade paper from the Magnolia Mill. Bound in a hand-sewn paper case and housed in a quarter leather clamshell box constructed by the Taurus Bindery. Leather spine features gold lettering and hand-tooling of a repeated pear designed by the artist. The edition, which originally numbered fifty copies, was reduced down to forty copies in the final stages due to foxing. Each plate is signed by the artist.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994

A hyper-modernist edition of the concrete poem wordswords is "Koch's final disarticulation" and ironicallly symbolizes the devaluation and loss of faith in the Word. Ur-Text is an extreme example of a metaphor and an icon of the "book as object." Text composed in Monotype Reproducing Bold type and printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. Hand-bound by Daniel Kelm in various metals. Covers are acid-etched zinc lined with doublures of oxidized brass. Primary sewing is braided dacron thread holding each signature to an external brass spine rod covered by aluminum tube segments, leaving space for a weaving of braided silk thread which connects the covers and signatures. Housed in a black and red Japanese-cloth-covered portfolio with magnetic fore-edge flap. Page edges tinted black.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994

Ur-text, the concrete poem “wordswords,” is an icon in the form of a sacred medieval manuscript book translated into a typographic form and printed by Peter Koch. The text is composed in Monotype Goudy Text and printed on Serpa hand-made paper watermarked with the press logo. The pages are hand-sewn onto alum-tawed goatskin thongs and covered in calfskin vellum, with twisted calfskin and Tibetan bone bead clasps. Various binders have contributed to the design and execution of the vellum treatment.

Thomas McEvilley.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994

This "text transmission object" is a collaborative sculpture designed as a "forgery" of a hypothetical object discovered by archeologists in the dump of ancient Corinth. Mixed media, ceramic and lead multiple. Designed by Peter Koch and hand-lettered by Christopher Stinehour. Printed letterpress from zinc engravings onto soft lead plates by Koch. Housed loose in a glazed ceramic box created by the sculptor Stephen Braun, each box unique in color and shape. Contains a selection of twenty-one selected short, philosophical performance pieces by Thomas McEvilley composed from the lore surrounding Diogenes of Sinope. As the plates are loose and unpaginated, they can be read in a random order.

Thomas McEvilley.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994

A "cheap paperback" edition designed and printed letterpress on chipboard by Peter Koch from the same plates used in the lead edition. Housed loose in a cardboard box with terra cotta and black printing. Includes an essay by the author reprinted from ARTFORUM magazine in orange and black, laid in. An image taken from Raphael’s “School of Athens” [1509-1510] is printed in solarized detail on the essay title page and in half-tone detail on the box top.

Thomas McEvilley.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1994

The "book about the object" issued to accompany and explain the mysteries surrounding the arch-cynic Diogenes and the "forged" archeological discovery of the lead tablets. Designed and printed letterpress from photo-polymer plates by Peter Koch, using Adobe Caslon for text, and Monotype Gill Sans and Deberny & Peignot Bifur for display. Lead tablet illustrations printed in two colors from linoleum blocks and photo-polymer plates. Color reproduction of the ceramic box and plates tipped in. An image taken from Raphael’s “School of Athens” [1509-1510] is printed in solarized detail on the title page and in half-tone detail on the cover. Bound by Arnold Martinez using chipboard and a black cloth spine. Features an introduction by Robert Bringhurst, a lengthy essay by McEvilley entitled “Diogenes of Sinope,” and notes “On lead as a text transmission object” by Koch.

Unsought Intimacies includes a small collection of very touching poems of love and friendship and a suite of 3 etchings. The entire edition was printed on paper made especially by Robert Serpa. The etchings were printed by Brian Shure at Smalltree Press in San Francisco. The text type, hand-set at the press, is 16 point Monotype Van Dijck roman and italic. The edition is bound in boards covered with Timothy Barrett’s blue-grey paper-case paper by Priscilla Spitler at BookLab, in Austin, Texas and is enclosed in a cloth covered slipcase. Signed by the author, artist and printer.

Philip Kuznicki.
Berkeley, California: Peter Koch, Printer, 1991

Twenty-six letters printed on Masa paper by Peter Koch. Each letter began as an original papercut and was photo-engraved on zinc plates for printing. Bound by Kuznicki using black cloth over boards with a cover label printed in red and black, and a visible stab-sewn binding. Red paste papers with alphabet motif also made by Kuznicki. Copies lettered A-Z include one of the original papercut letters in its own portfolio. Remaining copies numbered 27-126. Signed by the artist.

The entire surviving fragments of Herakleitos printed in a bilingual edition, celebrated by Robert Bringhurst in his book, A Short History of the Printed Word. Designed and printed letterpress by Peter Koch with Greek and English texts on facing pages. Greek text hand-set by Mark Livingston in Monotype Gill Sans; Latin fragments and English text composed in Bembo Roman and Fairbanks Italic. Cover paper hand-painted in a rich brown by Shelley Hoyt-Koch and features a printed label. Visible stab-sewn binding based on a third-century A.D. Coptic sewing structure designed and executed by Hoyt-Koch. 100 copies printed on Zerkall-Nideggen paper and 13 copies printed on Serpa handmade paper with a handmade paper wrap-around case. 33 unbound copies were discovered 15 years later and bound in paper over boards by Jane Kim. The first fragment of Herakleitos is composed in Kabel Greek type and printed on the cover in two colors. English translation of the fragments of Herakleitos reprinted with minor variations from Grey Fox Books. Signed by the translator.

Hailed as a masterwork and one of the great printed works of the late 20th century, Point Lobos was published as a collaboration between the typographer and printer, Peter Rutledge Koch and the photographer, Wolf von dem Bussche. The text is comprised of fifteen poems by Jeffers, chosen for their various reverberations of the spirit and beauty of Point Lobos, and a lengthy introduction by the poet, printer and Jeffers scholar, William Everson. The poems were handset in Albertus and Pegasus types; introduction and colophon set in Monotype Van Dijck. Printed by Peter Koch on Rives BFK White. Title page printed in terra cotta and black. Publisher’s device embossed on the lower right-hand corner of each leaf. Fifteen original photographs by von dem Bussche dramatically mirror the text and document the site of Jeffers’ inspiration; they are archivally printed and individually mounted on Rives BFK White. The pages are housed loose in a special folding case covered in German linen made by Klaus-Ullrich Rötzscher. Custom slipcase handcrafted from three-quarter inch black walnut by Shigoto Ya, Inc. Introduction by William Everson. Signed by both printer and photographer.

Poems reprinted from Timothy Hunt’s critical edition published by the Stanford University Press. Issued on the 100th anniversary year of the birth of Robinson Jeffers.

Though the edition was limited to 125 copies, 53 were destroyed in the Oakland Hills fire of 1991, paring the number of the edition down to seventy-two copies.

Michael Poage.
San Francisco, California: Black Stone Press, 1979

Handbook of Ornament is a suite of poems written in a sparse language that verges on the surreal. When issued, the book won several design awards and is a delight to hold and to read. Designed, handset in Romulus types imported from the Netherlands just for this edition, and printed letterpress by Peter Koch on Mohawk Superfine paper. Includes geometric typographic designs arranged by Koch and printed in yellow. 474 copies Smythe-sewn into ivory paper covers with an embossed typographic design. 26 copies hand-bound by Shelley Hoyt-Koch in yellow quarter cloth and ivory Fabriano Roma paper over boards with embossed design and printed spine label. Numbered and signed by the author.

Opal Nations has written a very sarcastic short piece of alchemical prose and invited the artist to illustrate it sight unseen and unread. The result is surreal chance formed in the somnambulist tradition.... a perfect match. Designed, handset in Linotype and foundry Garamond, and printed letterpress by Peter Koch on Curtis Utopian paper. Includes six full-page surreal anatomical collage illustrations created by Peter Koch and printed in dark terra cotta. 474 copies sewn into blue Strathmore wrappers printed in dark blue and black over black boards. 26 copies hand-bound by Shelley Hoyt-Koch in original marbled paper over boards with a printed spine label.

A suite of poems written in the finest tradition of rebellion and the surreal. Adam Cornford's first book of poems. Designed by Peter Koch and Shelley Hoyt-Koch and handset in Gill Sans types specially imported for this edition from England. Printed letterpress by Koch on Mohawk Superfine paper. Includes four full-page and title-page collage illustrations by the artist-in-exile Ludwig Zeller. 500 copies bound into red paper covers printed with an anatomical collage illustration. 50 copies hand-bound by Hoyt-Koch in black cloth over boards with printed cover and spine labels. Signed by the author.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

Number Six, Fall 1977
Offset Lithography. Features poems and prose by a number of writers, including Sky Garner, Ludwig Zeller, Adam Cornford, and Michael Poage. Closing essay by Peter Koch symmetrically entitled “Deadstart.” Text accompanied by a variety of graphics, including collages by Philip Kuznicki. Also includes two folding collage illustrations on Warrens Old Style paper by Ludwig Zeller and Susana Wald. Letterpress blue cover designed and printed in red and black by Shelley Hoyt-Koch.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

Number Five, Winter 1977
Offset lithography. Features poems and prose by Douglas Blazek, Patricia Geary, Daniel Lusk, Jane Bailey, Nancy Steele, and many others. Text accompanied by a variety of graphics, including paper-cuts by John Digby. Cover features an illustration by Bill Yenne. Co-edited by Jane Bailey.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

Number Four, Spring 1976
Offset lithography. Features poems and prose from a number of writers, including Gabriel Weisz Carrington, John Digby, Janine Pommy Vega, Gary Young, Henri Michaux, and many others. Text accompanied by graphics by Frank Dugan, Bruce Lee, Dirk Lee, and Pablo Weisz. Letterpress red cover features an illustration by Russell Smith.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

Number Two, Spring 1975
Offset lithography. Features poems, prose, and psalms from a number of writers, including Robert Bly, Keith Abbott, James Magorian, Milo Miles, and Steven Flick. Text accompanied by graphics by Bruce Lee, Dana Johnson, and Sir Quaxalot. Cover illustration by Lee.

A tri-quarterly publication featuring cowboy surrealists, maverick poets, writers, and artists. The publication was published and edited by Peter Koch and ran for six issues, spanning from 1974 to 1977. Shelley Hoyt-Koch collaborated on graphics and design for the last three issues.

Number One, Fall 1974
Offset lithography. Features poems and prose by Peter Koch, Adam Cornford, Jane Bailey, Robert Bly, Will Hochman, and many others. Opening essay by Koch entitled “Deadstart.” Text accompanied by illustrations and collages from artists such as Bruce Lee, Marie Wilson, Sir Quaxalot, and Nanos Valaoritis. Centerfold illustration by Jay Rummel. Cover and logo by Bill Yenne.